Gillian Flynn Talks About Books, Bravery, and Bad Girls 

“I never know where my books are going to end. I truly, really don’t. I may think I do, but I’ve even stopped trying to figure that out. Really, to me, the magic of writing and the fun of writing, and the inefficiency of writing, is to just see what characters are jumping in and where they’re taking me,” shared best-selling author Gillian Flynn, in the latest edition of El Encanto, A Belmond Hotel’s top-notch “Lunch with an Author” series. 

“I know I’m in a good place when the character suddenly does something that surprised me, and that sounds so author-y, but it really is true,” continued Flynn. The longtime writer and journalist who catapulted onto the best-seller lists with her 2012 novel Gone Girl (made into a 2014 film directed by David Fincher) was candid and funny and had a great repartee with host Mandy Jackson-Beverly throughout the November 12 event. 

Sharing a blurb from Stephen King about Flynn’s first book, Sharp Objects (published in 2006 and made into a 2018 HBO miniseries starring Amy Adams), Jackson-Beverly read: “To say this is a terrific debut novel is really too mild. I haven’t read such a relentlessly creepy family saga since John Farris’s All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By, and that was 30 years ago, give or take. Sharp Objects isn’t one of those scare-and-retreat books; its effect is cumulative. I found myself dreading the last 30 pages or so but was helpless to stop turning them. Then, after the lights were out, the story just stayed there in my head, coiled and hissing, like a snake in a cave. An admirably nasty piece of work, elevated by sharp writing and sharper insights.”

That nastiness, and Flynn’s willingness to break the “good girl” lead character mold with women who are far more interesting than nice, took up much of the conversation at the sold-out event. Thankfully, things have improved in that regard since her early career.  As Flynn explained, “There have been huge, huge changes. When we were shopping around Sharp Objects, and the narrator is a self harmer, she cuts herself. She’s recovering from a mental breakdown. She’s an alcoholic, dark. She’s struggling, though. She’s just trying to do her best. But we got turned down everywhere we went. And what we mainly got was ‘Men don’t read books by women.’ …  This was a kind of like, I hate to say “chick lit,” but it was a little back in that time period. You know, Sex and the City, and women love to shop and that sort of thing. And they said women only want to read aspirational characters. They will only read books about women who finally get the guy.” 

Not only has that changed in the last two decades, but Flynn herself has been part of the change. Not just as an author, but she has her own imprint, Gillian Flynn Books at Zando (bit.ly/3Vb8bfk) specializing in “books that are propulsive and culturally incisive.”

One of the series she discussed is the Sister Holiday Mystery series, by Margot Douaihy. “The books are about a nun, a gay former punk rocker, former addict nun who is in North New Orleans and ends up involved in a mystery. … She takes her religion very seriously and really loves the grace that it provides for her and believes in her religion very deeply. So I like that, that contradiction, because that’s always there.” Kittentits by Holly Wilson is another Zando title she’s excited about — ”a raunchy 10-year-old coming-of-age novel.”

Jackson-Beverly asked Flynn, “Now that you are working as a publisher as well as an author, how has that changed your approach to writing, and how does your experience as a writer inform you as a publisher?”

“I think it’s made me braver as a writer,” said Flynn. “It’s maybe just being exposed to all these new voices and people who might not be published in the mainstream. … It reminds me to take those chances, because these are people who would have been me if I were new in the market and coming out with Sharp Objects; I don’t know that I would be published. The industry is so wonky right now, so it makes me kind of want to take that big swing. … It makes me want to find those people who take, take those big risks, and take those big chances and are just like, ‘I’m going to write what I want to write.’”

The final Lunch with an Author event of the year is with Dawn Tripp on Tuesday, December 3. Tripp is the nationally best-selling author of the novels Jackie and Georgia, finalist for the New England Book Award and winner of the Mary Lynn Kotz Award for Art in Literature. Praised by The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, and others, Jackie is described by author Chris Bohjalian as a “brilliant, beautiful book that touches the soul in ways conventional biographies can’t.” Tripp is the author of three previous novels: Game of Secrets, Moon Tide, and The Season of Open Water, which won the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction. For more information, see independent.com/events/el-encantos-lunch-with-an-author-dawn-tripp.